I was wondering what everyone's reasons for making a webcomic are. There's a lot of different media around, like books and videos. What made you choose making a webcomic over some other type of media? And what inspired/persuaded you to even make it at all?

For me, I think a webcomic is just a great fit. I've been writing stories and drawing for as long as I can remember, and I also have a great deal of fun making websites. So if I burn myself out on drawing pages, writing chapters, or managing the site, I can just move onto one of the other tasks and stay productive while still greatly enjoying myself.

The only thing I'm not enjoying so far is advertising.

The story I have I've had floating around in my mind for a long time, and only recently started polishing it up to share with others. So it's really exciting to have it out for other people to (hopefully) enjoy. I'd been considering writing a book, but for the kind of story I'm going for, I think a webcomic works better.

What about you guys? Why do you make a webcomic (or webcomics!) and what do you enjoy about it?

I really enjoy writing comics, so much that I never even have time to write short stories anymore. I love doing things in a visual manner. For me it's this wonderful center between film and books, but better. You can do more than film can in a way because there really isn't much of a budget and nobody is going to compromise your work. There's an extra thrill for me because I'm no artist, so i get to see how the artists i work with interpret what I do.

It's just fun all around, and you can do whatever the hell you want._________________Coffee Time Comics

Low to non-existent overhead, comparatively easy distribution, complete control of the finished product.

That's what mostly does it for me. Oh and I guess the medium itself has a fascinating history and some really great things have come out of it, and telling the same kind of story via traditional illustration would just plain suck._________________

I've been drawing since before I could read. Seriously, that's how my mom got me to behave in places was by giving me some paper and a pencil and letting me go to town.

Other than that (or maybe because of that) I find it hard to describe the things I see in my head. It's easier to draw that I see and go from there. I just wish I drew faster because I have a ton of stories in my head waiting to get out, but I'm still stuck here refining my drawing and training myself to go all digital so that I don't have an endless search for a scanner.

I was a bit inspired by my friend though. She kinda' introduced me to webcomics and a lot of the stuff that goes into it. She also helps me with art when I ask her about it.. whether critiques or pointers on a medium. She's a lot farther along with comics than I am too. She already has a whole chapter of her first comic online, even if it hasn't updated for a while. She's about to graduate from MCAD with a degree in comic art, so her senior project eats up a lot of her time.

I actually have a story about this! My webcomic took me seven years to launch.

Because for the first year, I thought it was going to be a novel.

But then I was like, no, it would be better to do it as a web series. But then I realized I didn't have equipment or crew or costumes or anything, so I went back to the novel idea. For some reason, I started a blog for my characters around this time that I quickly abandoned... I actually converted it to the site my webcomic currently sits on, but I'm ahead of myself.

So, I went a few years alternating between Mistress Deathspike being a novel or a movie. Then I realized both of these ideas were dumb for the purposes of marketing - sure, you can sell tickets to a Batman movie or people will buy a Batman novel, but people know who Batman is. Nobody's heard of my supervillain main character.

So, year six. I decided to do a graphic novel. That lasted three days until I realized, no. This has been in my brain for six years and the world must be in on it. Webcomic.

So I spent a year writing it and finding an artist and all that fun stuff.

I like the way each comic is a final product. I'm one of those people who has the half-written novel, the half-written screenplay, etc., and knows that none of them are really good enough to see the light of day even if I finish them. But the webcomic, boom, here's my product. And then here's another and another. I don't know why I find that satisfying; compensation for not being able to see to the end other projects I suppose.

There's an extra thrill for me because I'm no artist, so i get to see how the artists i work with interpret what I do.

To me, it's kind of a scary idea to put my creation in the hands of someone else, haha. If I worked with someone else, I'd probably have so many notes for every detail on every page.

nsanelilmunky wrote:

I just wish I drew faster because I have a ton of stories in my head waiting to get out, but I'm still stuck here refining my drawing and training myself to go all digital so that I don't have an endless search for a scanner.

I agree, haha. I have a bunch of stories I want to do but I can only really focus on one at a time since drawing takes a good deal of time. Is buying a scanner out of the question?

ttallan wrote:

Oh, it was an easy choice for me. In the '90s I was publishing Galaxion as Diamond-distributed comic books, before I took a break to be a mom. When I came back in 2006, it was clear self-published floppy comics were no longer viable and web was the place to be. And I've been here ever since.

That's interesting! So are you liking the webcomic format more?

QueenAmanda wrote:

And that's why a webcomic. Because after six years, I got impatient.

Haha, even if it took a while, it sounds like you finally got the last push you needed to make a decision though.

IN my case, I wanted to write and draw a traditional comic in the newspaper, but I could not develop the speed to do it daily. One day, a thief stole my laptop (while my external hard drive with the backups was broken) and I lost almost a year of work. That's when I decided to do a webcomic, so that no one could steal it from me again._________________www.Midtoon.com

I had a story I really wanted to tell and just didn't feel that a novel was the right format. I always had some artistic talent but never really developed it. I've spent the past two years getting to the skill level I have now and a long ways yet to go... anyway, the graphic novel format is, I think, the best for the story I want to tell.

There's an extra thrill for me because I'm no artist, so i get to see how the artists i work with interpret what I do.

To me, it's kind of a scary idea to put my creation in the hands of someone else, haha. If I worked with someone else, I'd probably have so many notes for every detail on every page.

I write in a pretty detailed manner. Also, I've been working with the same person for a very long time so I trust him. In the end I really don't have much of a choice so if something isn't exactly as I pictured it, it's not a big deal. I'm happy about 98% of the time with the outcome.

Now in the future when I find another artist to work with, that'll be interesting. Everyone is different so it'll take some getting used to the new situation._________________Coffee Time Comics

Well, one day, I sat down and said to myself, "If you don't start making your comic right now you NEVER WILL and if you don't have a deadline right in front of your face it'll be just like all the other ones with 6 pages petering out."

So I joined ComicGenesis, didn't have a buffer, and just started posting pages three times a week with no planning whatsoever. It actually worked too, my art actually improved by leaps and bounds during this period and I learned a lot about how not to make a comic.

The funny thing is, I didn't even really follow any webcomics at this point. I'd read a couple and knew they usually updated three times a week on a webpage. I knew nothing about how it 'worked', only that hey, there was this free host available and they got updated page by page. I had no illusions of money, I just had a script from ScriptFrenzy and an itch to do something with it. I always wanted to do a newspaper comic but I knew what I wrote wasn't funny._________________

I drew comics before the web, but they usually sat in a drawer and were perused by a dozen people or less. In college I posted some comics on my dorm room door. So perhaps a few more dozen people saw them. It seemed pointless, but I enjoyed the process enough to continue. With the web I was able to take what I was doing anyway and present it to a larger audience. Now I can safely say that after 6 years at least 100,000 people, maybe more, have seen at least one of my comics. You can't get that kind of reach anywhere else. It's nice not to have things molding in the drawer. That's the "why webcomic" answer for me._________________Ed Womack